St. John's wants its fan base to storm Madison Square Garden and neutralize UConn fans
St. John's head coach Rick Pitino reacts during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against Creighton on Sunday at Madison Square Garden. Credit: AP/Noah K. Murray
‘Protect this house.’
It’s a phrase heard in college basketball locker rooms all over the country, an insistence to athletes that they must win their home games and not allow some interloping visitor to beat them on their court where they are supposed to have a substantial advantage.
When No. 10 St. John's takes on two-time national champion Connecticut at noon on Sunday at the Garden, it’s going to have to be more than the Red Storm players protecting their house. This is a notice to the St. John’s fan base not to let the Storm’s home-court advantage become the home-court disadvantage that it’s been against UConn so many times during the past quarter century.
How often have we seen the passionate Huskies fans descend on New York, make the Garden their own and force St. John’s to play a home game with the look and feel of a road game? How many times have the UConn fans drowned out the chants of ‘Let’s Go Johnnies” with their own catalog of cheers?
"Yeah, I'm sure that it's something that for the St John's fan as a die hard and true fan,” Huskies coach Dan Hurley said Saturday in a Zoom interview. “For the last couple of years, it's probably been a frustrating thing to maybe see a 50-50 split with the crowd or a 60-40 or 40-60 in whichever direction.”
Red Storm coach Rick Pitino said Friday that such things don’t bother him. One can’t exactly say the same for the players.
“It was a little bit of a of an issue,” Zuby Ejiofor said, referring to the huge pro-UConn crowd at the teams’ 2024 Big East Tournament semifinal, “but we have very high optimism that things will be different this time.”
“UConn always brings their fans and St John's is having the fans in there, too.” Simeon Wilcher said. “It's kind of going to be like a clash, but I'm excited for that. Looking forward to it.”
As if this matchup between the Red Storm and UConn (18-8, 10-5) didn’t already feel big enough. Every meeting between these teams the past two seasons has had a lot of gravitas and this one is no different.
St. John’s (23-4, 14-2) is on a drive to win its first Big East regular season title since 1985 and has a two-game lead over Creighton with four games left. With no offense intended to Seton Hall or Butler, this game and the season finale at No. 16 Marquette would be the two most-likely places the Storm could stumble.
And if the gravitas were not enough, questions swirl about whether St. John’s leading scorer RJ Luis Jr. will be able to play after he missed Wednesday night’s win over DePaul in Chicago with a groin strain.
Before St. John’s practiced at the Garden on Friday, Zuby Ejiofor, Luis’ roommate, said he was optimistic, but Pitino gave nothing that would incentivize optimism about Luis.
Pitino, however, did declare Kadary Richmond, who is playing through a groin pull, will definitely play.
And Richmond, as a player at both Seton Hall and St. John’s, does seem to get up for the Huskies. In eight games against them, he is averaging 15.3 points on 47% shooting, 4.0 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 2.8 steals.
“Whenever the stakes are higher, he rises to the occasion against the best teams in the Big East and that’s something we’re going to need from him,” Ejiofor said.
The St. John’s fan base has been exceptional this season, from traveling to see the team in the Bahamas to selling out Carnesecca Arena to filling the Garden with one sellout crowd and another of 19,000-plus. It’s a huge reason the Red Storm hasn’t lost a home game all season, including a 7-0 mark at the Garden thus far (dating back to last season they’ve won an NCAA-leading 18 straight regular season home games).
The team has so captured the imagination that the school moved next weekend’s game against Seton Hall from Carnesecca Arena to the Garden and already has sold 16,000 tickets for it.
Nevertheless, because the UConn fans make their presence felt, it’s hard to ignore what the setting will be.
“I remember playing in college [with Seton Hall] at Continental Airlines Arena and, you know, the busses were coming in from Connecticut when they started to get it rolling,” Connecticut coach Dan Hurley said in a zoom interview on Saturday. “And it was a strange type of phenomenon because of all the alumni and fans [and the] six championships since ’99 has created a fan base in the tri-state now and across the country.”
“But maybe because we're not as good as we've been and they're a lot better than they've been, I'd imagine the split tomorrow is going to be 70-30 against,” Hurley added. “Maybe I'm being a little a little negative [about] what our turnout will be.”
Pitino has not been bashful about exhorting the St. John’s fans to come out because he knows the magic that can come with a great Garden crowd. As Ejiofor said, “That's something that we need and thrive off of, the energy and the support they show us. And it’s something we expect coming up against UConn,”
“They’re going to show out, believe me,” Pitino said of Storm fans. “I mean, we already have 16,000 seats sold for Seton Hall. So they're going to show up. [Huskies fans] travel great and they show up everywhere. They're just like Kentucky. They're the Eastern version of Kentucky, which is the highest compliment I can pay their fans.”
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
